PHILADLEPHIA — The Eagles had just experienced an unsightly regular-season loss in Arizona and were returning home to face the Super Bowl champions. So by week’s end, they would know. They would know if they were as capable as they’d believed.

That’s what the Eagles found Sunday at the Linc in a 19-17 victory over the New York Giants. That’s what they have proven in a 3-1 start that has been anything but an accident.

They found that if they would trust their running game, streamline their passing attack and limit the sloppiness that had been their DNA through their first three games, they could beat good teams in tough spots in times of potential crisis.

That’s what they did Sunday, making no turnovers, surrendering just one sack and grabbing first place in the NFC East with their third — yes, their third — fourth-quarter rally to victory this season.

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Given the assemblage of talent, there had been no reason since training camp to doubt the Eagles’ readiness to compete. They had multiple Pro Bowl playmakers and had improved their defense with the middle linebacking excellence of DeMeco Ryans. They were not young, not old, still hungry. Their coach had been put on win-or-leave notice, more or less. Their defensive coordinator, so overwhelmed in the first half of his first season in the job, had recovered in the second.

So, their formula was simple then, as it remains now: Just play responsible, big-league football and no goal would be out of reach. Block. Hit. Don’t commit careless penalties. Don’t throw passes into trouble areas for no particular reason.

Just play, play hard, play smart.

Just play, that is, unlike they’d played throughout the first three weeks, when a soft offensive line, an oddly unbalanced playbook and the habit of turning the ball over made them look just as ordinary as they were as they were in going 8-8 in 2011.

For three quarters, the Eagles did that Sunday. The Giants did too. By then, the only mystery was which team would prove human first. When it was the Giants --- Eli Manning throwing an interception in the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter — the Eagles were at once validated and emboldened.

Eleven plays and 5:24 later, they would inflate their 13-10 lead to 16-10, and would have proven plenty.

They proved that they could run the ball, and that in LeSean McCoy they had the one player in the game most capable of doing so. Michael Vick, so inconsistent the previous week that Andy Reid would initially promise to keep his status as his No. 1 quarterback under evaluation, was calm, both in the pocket and in the open field.

The Giants, champions for a reason, retaliated, Manning hitting Bear Pascoe with a go-ahead, six-yard touchdown pass. But they left the Eagles enough time to recover, which they did, putting Alex Henery in position to kick the game-winning field goal.

There were eight first-half penalties Sunday, only three by the Eagles. Vick was not sacked and did not throw an interception. No one lost a fumble. Nobody tried anything ridiculous. Even the offense, so heavily criticized after the Birds’ 2-1 start, had begun to show balance, with nine first-half passes, six runs.

“It’s not of of whack,” offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg had protested during the week, before a rambling justification of his historically pass-heavy plans. “We certainly could have slowed it down a little bit and made sure that we got the communication part down and run the ball a little more certainly, absolutely. I’m not trying not to get sensitive or anything like that.”

Instead, the Eagles just employed a balanced, sensible offense. And they were disciplined on defense. Mostly, they held onto the ball.

They did all of that while their quarterback was under the coach’s evaluation.

They did all of that, even when Manning had a chance to lead the defending Super Bowl champions on a game-winning drive of his own.